A myth has arisen concerning Turing’s paper of 1936, namely that he there gave a treatment of the limits of mechanism, and established a fundamental result to the effect that the universal Turing machine can simulate the behaviour of anymachine. This myth has passed into the philosophy of mind, theoretical psychology, cognitive science, computer science, Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Life, and elsewhere—generally to pernicious effect.

Fits with my handwavy explanation: we operate under a law of conservation of meaning. We seek to do meaningful things, and when one feels worthless or a burden, incapable of producing meaning, we still feel the drive of meaningness, but the only way of promoting it in this case is through others.